The research group ROMPOL (Political Discourses in Romance Speaking Countries) at the Department of Romance Studies and Classics, Stockholm University, organizes its third international workshop at Stockholm University on November15-16, 2018: “Identity discourses and discourses of belonging versus not-belonging in romance speaking countries”.

Annonce

Third workshop within the research network Political Discourse in the Romance Speaking Countries: linguistics and social science perspectives (ROMPOL)

November 15-16, 2018, Stockholm University, Sweden

Argument

After the treatment of Extreme discourses during Rompol’s second workshop and in the forthcoming anthology, Political Discourses and the Extremes. Expression of populism in the Romance Speaking Countries, our research group aims to focus on identity discourses and discourses of belonging vs not-belonging. The main theme of this third Rompol workshop will embrace how political groups, migrant communities and minorities are represented in actual political discourses, where questions regarding inclusion versus exclusion are omnipresent. The workshop’s overall aim is to link these discursive representations of identities with socio-cultural factors that constitute the context of specific communicative events or discursive moments (cf “moments discursifs” (Moirand 2007). Our questioning has its origin in the present political situation in Europe, more specifically in the European integration vs desintegration processes and the shaping of public opinion and political discourse across the national and transnational borders.

Beyond this macro-context, our objective is to investigate how voices who have emerged from varying “crisis” during the last decade ̶ the European migrant crisis,the Brexit, or Catalonia’s will of independence, etc. ̶ are represented in the public political discourses.

A third object of investigation is what Paveau (2017) calls “les discours des locuteurs vulnérables” (the Vulnerables’ discourses) or what Ducard & al (2017) name “les discours sans voix” (Discourses without Voices) as well as Rabatel’s (2016) “les discours des invisibles” (the Invisibles’ discourses), that is to say discourses coming from “private” speakers or groups who usually do not express themselves in the public sphere and/or who live on the margins of society. We are interested in knowing how their words are conveyed and represented in official discourses (media- and political discourses) or which nominations are used by the politicians to refer to them.

We encourage papers that raise questions regarding the ongoing political processes of inclusion and exclusion just mentioned above as well as the following research questions:

By which linguistic means are different identities − national, gendered, ethnic, etc. − represented in the public mediated political discourse?

How are tensions between the opposing sides in discourses of inclusion vs exclusion textually represented?

How are relations of power engendered discursively and how well do discourses’ agency (transitivity, passive constructions, etc.) map the interplay between dominant and subdued social groups in society.

What social discourses − history, ethnicity, language, etc. − constitute the basis for the representation of identities in different political narratives?

What societal, socio-linguistic and socio-pragmatic phenomena may contribute to different representation of identities in different Romance speaking countries?

Are there any differences of identity representation between different cultural and political communities within similar discursive activities (political debate, parliamentary discourse) or in mediated texts that refer to the same communicative event (press, audio-visual media, blogs)? And if so, what elements contribute to these differences?